OCO-3 Ready to Extend NASA's Study of Carbon

09 May 2019

When the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, OCO-3, heads to the International Space Station, it will bring a new view — literally — to studies of Earth's carbon cycle.

From its perch on the space station, OCO-3 will observe near-global measurements of carbon dioxide on land and sea, from just after sunrise to just before sunset. That makes it far more versatile and powerful than its predecessor, OCO-2.

"OCO-2 revisits areas on Earth at roughly the same time of day due to its sun-synchronous orbit," said Matt Bennett, OCO-3's project systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "OCO-3 will expand the time period of that coverage and observe the presence of carbon dioxide at varying times of day."

Image credit:
NASA
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After the Candadarm2 grappled the Dragon spacecraft and berthed it on the space station's Harmony module, OCO-3 was extracted and installed on the exterior of the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility.